violations of these dictates increased when saltpeter was introduced into the
exchange, since Mulai Mohammed, who was in power at the time, insisted
that the English pay with ammunition. Initially Elizabeth complied, arousing
the ire of the Iberian powers, who pressured England to honor the papal ban.
Though in 1574 the queen officially conceded, behind the scenes the trade
continued through the reign of el-Mansur, under the auspices either of her
own clandestine orders or of the clandestine activities of her own, indepen-
dently motivated agents. These developments did not go unattended. A letter
sent from a Spanish ambassador in London to the Grand Commander of
Castile in 1574 expresses dismay “that the King [of Portugal] will allow En-
glish heretics to...trade with the Moors, carrying there, as they constantly
do, great quantities of arms, to the prejudice of the King [of Spain] and his
subjects.”^20 And a Portuguese ambassador had Hogan hauled before the Privy
Council to answer charges that he had broken the weapons ban.^21
In pursuing their goals in Morocco, the English needed to walk gingerly
around Spain and Portugal and attempted therefore to hide these controver-
sial deals, as E. W. Bovill long ago suggested. Bovill likely goes too far in ar-
guing that the queen, rather than her agents, directly authorized the covert
activities.^22 But in any case, as he has shown, traces of the trade and cover-up
appear in public records. So, for example, Hogan’s account of his negotiations
with “Mully Abdelmelech,” which is published in Hakluyt’s Navigationsand
which provides the fullest view of Barbary there, is filled with loaded digres-
sions and silences obscuring the details of the very trade it lays out (Hakluyt,
6 : 285 ). Hogan repeatedly diverts attention from the substance of the bargain-
ing by focusing rather on exchanged gifts and entertainments—among them
“musicke,” “a Morris dance, and a play” ( 6 : 291 ). Where Hogan details the
mercantile transactions, he emphasizes Abdelmelech’s promise to allow En-
glish ships “good securitie” within “his ports and dominions,” “in trade of
marchandize, as for victuall & water,” and to grant them “safe conduct” for
their ventures into the Levant ( 6 : 290 ). At the end of the narrative, he does
admit that the English also sought and acquired saltpeter. But while it is clear
that the necessary bargaining was more extended and more vexed (a meeting
for Tuesday was put off until Thursday and not settled for five days, the ques-
tion of saltpeter brought up at least twice), Hogan does not indicate why.
Hints of the arms deal appear only through telling denials. Abdelmelech, he
reports, did not want “to urge her Majestie with any demaundes, more then
conveniently shee might willingly consent unto” ( 6 : 288 ). Reciprocally, the
queen (Hogan claims to have declared) was prepared to “pleasure” the Moor
Enter Barbary 25